Novel foods, traditional debates: Framing biotechnology sustainability

Biotechnologies are expected to have profound impacts across industrial and industrializing economies. One of the critical shaping influences on the development and use of these technologies will be the multiple social contests that have developed over their sustainability. For new technologies to become embedded in social, economic and institutional systems, processes of mutual adjustment must take place in both the technology and its social contexts. These adjustment processes tend to be complex and unpredictable, and their scale and scope reflect the anticipated significance of a new technology. I review the range of debates and contests about the impacts of biotechnology on environmental and social sustainability that will influence its development and diffusion. These contests are viewed as contingent, in that they are often framed by already established concerns and interests. In this sense, debates about biotechnology are primarily 'additive', rather than wholly novel.

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